Email Etiquettes

Introduction
As there are rules and protocols of how to handle calls or answer
phones similarly there are some guidelines of rules for to handle
emails or replying to emails.
Responding to complaints letters is of course a different matter
than doing the complaining.
If you are in a customer Interaction position of any sort, and you
receive complaints from customers then there is a proper rules or
protocols which an Analyst need to follow
As he is representing on companies behalf he needs to maintain
professionalism yet customer friendly
Analyst needs to understand the proper use of words and their meaning when
formatting a mail
Firstly it is important to refer to, and be aware of, and be fully versed in your
organization's policies and procedures for dealing with customer
Aside from the judgment about solutions, remedial action, or compensation, etc., it
is always vital to respond to all complaints with empathy and sympathy.
Remember that the person on the other end of the phone, or the writer of the
complaint letter, is another human being, trying to do the best they can, with the
same pressures and challenges that you have.
Respect the other person. Focus on the issues and solutions, not the personality or
the emotion
You should therefore always demonstrate a willingness, and the capability, to
understand a customer's feelings and situation , whether or not you actually agree
with their stand-point
Before sending any response letter ensure that you satisfy yourself that you are
operating within your organization's guidelines covering service levels, remedial
action, compensation and acceptance of liability or blame
There are many etiquette guides and many different etiquette rules

Some rules will differ according to the nature of your business and the
corporate culture.
Below we list what we consider as the most important email etiquette
rules that apply to nearly all companies

1. Salutations: Right salutation in right mail. How do you open your email:

Dear Sir, Dear Mr. XYZ etc? So the right words at right place do give a
good impression of your courtesy and understanding.
2. Be concise and to the point: Do not make an e-mail longer than it needs
to be. Remember that reading an e-mail is harder than reading printed
communications and a long e-mail can be very discouraging to read
3. Answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions: An email reply must
answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions – If you do not answer all
the questions in the original email, you will receive further e-mails regarding the
unanswered questions, which will not only waste your time and your customer’s
time but also cause considerable frustration
Moreover, if you are able to pre-empt relevant questions, your customer will be
grateful and impressed with your efficient and thoughtful customer service.
Imagine for instance that a customer sends you an email asking some reports and
details
Instead of just listing the details which the customer had asked for, you can guess
that their next question will be about how you have derived the report .
Customers will definitely appreciate this.
4. Use proper spelling, grammar & punctuation: This is not only important
because improper spelling, grammar and punctuation give a bad impression of
your company, it is also important for conveying the message properly
E-mails with no full stops or commas are difficult to read and can sometimes even
change the meaning of the text. And, if your program has a spell checking option,
why not use it?
5. Make it personal: Not only should the e-mail be personally addressed, it
should also include personal i.e. customized content. For this reason auto replies
are usually not very effective.
6. Use templates for frequently used responses: Some questions you get over
and over again, such as directions to your office or how to subscribe to your
newsletter.
Save these texts as response templates and paste these into your message when
you need them. You can save your templates in a Word document, or use pre-
formatted emails
7. Answer swiftly: Customers send an e-mail because they wish to receive a
quick response. If they did not want a quick response they would send a letter or
a fax. Therefore, each e-mail should be replied to within at least 24 hours, and
preferably within the same working day.
If the email is complicated, just send an email back saying that you have
received it and that you will get back to them. This will put the customer's mind
at rest and usually customers will then be very patient!
8. Do not attach unnecessary files: By sending large attachments you can
annoy customers and even bring down their e-mail system.
Wherever possible try to compress attachments and only send attachments when
they are productive.
Moreover, you need to have a good virus scanner in place since your customers
will not be very happy if you send them documents full of viruses!
9. Use proper structure & layout: Since reading from a screen is more difficult
than reading from paper, the structure and lay out is very important for e-mail
messages. Use short paragraphs and blank lines between each paragraph.
When making points, number them or mark each point as separate to keep the
overview
10. Do not overuse the high priority option : We all know the story of the boy
who cried wolf. If you overuse the high priority option, it will lose its function
when you really need it.
Moreover, even if a mail has high priority, your message will come across as
slightly aggressive if you flag it as 'high priority'
11. Do not write in CAPITALS: IF YOU WRITE IN CAPITALS IT SEEMS AS
IF YOU ARE SHOUTING. This can be highly annoying and might trigger an
unwanted response in the form of a flame mail. Therefore, try not to send any
email text in capitals.
12. Don't leave out the message thread: When you reply to an email, you must
include the original mail in your reply, in other words click 'Reply', instead of 'New Mail'.

Some people say that you must remove the previous message since this has already
been sent and is therefore unnecessary.
However, I could not agree less. If you receive many emails you obviously cannot
remember each individual email.
This means that a 'thread less email' will not provide enough information and you will
have to spend a frustratingly long time to find out the context of the email in order to deal
with it.
Leaving the thread might take a fraction longer in download time, but it will save the
recipient much more time and frustration in looking for the related emails in their inbox!
13. Add disclaimers to your emails: It is important to add disclaimers to your
internal and external mails, since this can help protect your company from
liability. Consider the following scenario: an employee accidentally forwards a
virus to a customer by email.
The customer decides to sue your company for damages. If you add a disclaimer
at the bottom of every external mail, saying that the recipient must check each
email for viruses and that it cannot be held liable for any transmitted viruses, this
will surely be of help to you in court
14. Read the email before you send it: A lot of people don't bother to read an
email before they send it out, as can be seen from the many spelling and grammar
mistakes contained in emails.
Apart from this, reading your email through the eyes of the recipient will help
you send a more effective message and avoid misunderstandings and
inappropriate comments.
15. Do not overuse Reply to All : Only use Reply to All if you really need your
message to be seen by each person who received the original message
16. Mailings > use the Bcc: field or do a mail merge: When sending an email
mailing, some people place all the email addresses in the To: field.

There are two drawbacks to this practice:

(1) the recipient knows that you have sent the same message to a large number of
recipients, and
(2) you are publicizing someone else's email address without their permission. One
way to get round this is to place all addresses in the Bcc: field. However, the
recipient will only see the address from the To: field in their email, so if this was
empty, the To: field will be blank and this might look like spamming. You could
include the mailing list email address in the To: field, or even better, if you have
Microsoft Outlook and Word you can do a mail merge and create one message for
each recipient. A mail merge also allows you to use fields in the message so that
you can for instance address each recipient personally. For more information on
how to do a Word mail merge, consult the Help in Word.
17. Take care with abbreviations and emoticons: In business emails, try not to
use abbreviations such as BTW (by the way) and LOL (laugh out loud). The
recipient might not be aware of the meanings of the abbreviations and in business
emails these are generally not appropriate.
The same goes for emoticons, such as the smiley :-). If you are not sure whether
your recipient knows what it means, it is better not to use it
18. Be careful with formatting: Remember that when you use formatting in your
emails, the sender might not be able to view formatting, or might see different
fonts than you had intended. When using colors, use a color that is easy to read on
the background
19. Take care with rich text and HTML messages: Be aware that when you send
an email in rich text or HTML format, the sender might only be able to receive
plain text emails.
If this is the case, the recipient will receive your message as a .txt attachment. Most
email clients however, including Microsoft Outlook, are able to receive HTML and
rich text messages.
20. Do not forward chain letters: Do not forward chain letters. We can safely
say that all of them are hoaxes. Just delete the letters as soon as you receive them
21. Do not request delivery and read receipts: This will almost always annoy
your recipient before he or she has even read your message.
Besides, it usually does not work anyway since the recipient could have blocked
that function, or his/her software might not support it, so what is the use of using
it?
If you want to know whether an email was received it is better to ask the recipient
to let you know if it was received
22.Do not ask to recall a message: Biggest chances are that your message has
already been delivered and read. A recall request would look very silly in that
case wouldn't it? It is better just to send an email to say that you have made a
mistake.
This will look much more honest than trying to recall a message
23. Do not copy a message or attachment without permission: Do not copy a
message or attachment belonging to another user without permission of the
originator.
If you do not ask permission first, you might be infringing on copyright laws
24. Do not use email to discuss confidential information: Sending an email is
like sending a postcard.
If you don't want your email to be displayed on a bulletin board, don't send it.
Moreover, never make any libelous, sexist or racially discriminating comments in
emails, even if they are meant to be a joke
25. Use a meaningful subject: Try to use a subject that is meaningful to the
recipient as well as yourself. For instance, when you send an email to a company
requesting information about a product, it is better to mention the actual name of
the product,:
e.g. 'Product A information' than to just say 'product information' or the company's
name in the subject.
26. Use active instead of passive: Try to use the active voice of a verb wherever
possible. For instance, 'We will process your order today', sounds better than
'Your order will be processed today'.
The first sounds more personal, whereas the latter, especially when used
frequently, sounds unnecessarily formal
27. Avoid using URGENT and IMPORTANT: Even more so than the high-
priority option, you must at all times try to avoid these types of words in an email
or subject line. Only use this if it is a really, really urgent or important message

28.Avoid long sentences: Try to keep your sentences to a maximum of 15-20

words. Email is meant to be a quick medium and requires a different kind of
writing than letters.

Also take care not to send emails that are too long. If a person receives an email
that looks like a dissertation, chances are that they will not even attempt to read
it!
29. Don't send or forward emails containing libelous, defamatory,
offensive, racist or obscene remarks: By sending or even just forwarding one
libelous, or offensive remark in an email, you and your company can face court
cases resulting in multi-million dollar penalties.

30. Don't forward virus hoaxes and chain letters: If you receive an email
message warning you of a new unstoppable virus that will immediately delete
everything from your computer, this is most probably a hoax.

By forwarding hoaxes you use valuable bandwidth and sometimes virus hoaxes
contain viruses themselves, by attaching a so-called file that will stop the
dangerous virus.

The same goes for chain letters that promise incredible riches or ask your help
for a charitable cause. Even if the content seems to be bona fide, the senders are
usually not. Since it is impossible to find out whether a chain letter is real or
not, the best place for it is the recycle bin.
31. Keep your language gender neutral: In this day and age,
avoid using sexist language such as: 'The user should add a
signature by configuring his email program'.

Apart from using he/she, you can also use the neutral gender: ''The
user should add a signature by configuring the email program‘

32. Don't reply to spam: By replying to spam or by unsubscribing,

you are confirming that your email address is 'live'. Confirming this
will only generate even more spam.

Therefore, just hit the delete button or use email software to remove
spam automatically
33. Use cc: field sparingly: Try not to use the cc: field unless the
recipient in the cc: field knows why they are receiving a copy of
the message.

Using the cc: field can be confusing since the recipients might not
know who is supposed to act on the message. Also, when
responding to a cc: message, should you include the other recipient
in the cc: field as well? This will depend on the situation.

In general, do not include the person in the cc: field unless you
have a particular reason for wanting this person to see your
response. Again, make sure that this person will know why they are
receiving a copy
Customer service response letter to a customer complaint -
template example

Name and address

Date

Reference

Dear.........

I am writing with reference to (situation or complaint) of (date).

Firstly I apologise ('apologize' in US) for the inconvenience/distress/problems created by our error/failure.

We take great care to ensure that important matters such as this are properly managed /processed/implemented ,
although due to (give reason - be careful as to how much detail you provide - generally you need only outline the
reason broadly), so on this occasion an acceptable standard has clearly not been met/we have clearly not succeeded in
meeting your expectations.

In light of this, we have decided to (solution or offer), which we hope will be acceptable to you, and hope also that
this will provide a basis for continuing our relationship/your continued custom.

I will call you soon to check that this meets with your approval/Please contact me should you have any further cause
for concern.

Yours, etc.
Important points whiles dealing with Customer Complaints
Always take personal responsibility for problems until they are fully resolved
Don't just 'throw it over the wall' and hope that a colleague sees it through
You must be the guardian of the complaint and look after the customer to ensure
that your organization does the right thing, even when someone else has
responsibility to deal with it.
Always check that the customer has been looked after, and the problem finally
resolved - it's just a phone call.
Always check your policies, procedures, standing instructions, latest bulletins, etc
relating to service delivery levels and complaints resolution
When things go wrong it's normally because people don't understand what
expectations are, rather than a failure of an individual, or the action or reaction of a
customer
Be careful about accepting liability if you have no guideline or policy enabling
you to do so, and in any event, wherever you perceive potentially significant
liability could exist, delay any decision or commitment until seeking advice from
a person in suitable authority.
Always try to speak to people on the phone - even if you're writing a letter -
make contact by phone as well. Voice contact is so much more reliable and
effective when trying to diffuse conflict and rebuild trust
Before you send anything - read it back to yourself and ask, "What would I
think if I received this? How would I feel?" If your answers are less than positive
you should re-write the letter.
If you ever find yourself using a nasty old standard customer complaints
response letter, that your department has been using for ages, to the distress of
your complaining customers, take responsibility for getting the standard letter
replaced with something that is positive and empathic and constructive.
In responding to serious, large complaints and implications, you should initially
respond with an immediate solution to resolve the current issue, and then arrange
with the customer how best to develop and agree a remedial change that will
prevent re-occurrence, which for large contracts should probably entail a meeting,
involving relevant people from both sides
In some situations you will find that the need is actually for a fully blown re-
negotiation of the service level agreement.
In such cases do embrace the opportunity as a very positive one - a chance to
consolidate and strengthen the relationship, and normally an opportunity to extend
the length of the contract.

In dealing with complains of any sort, take heart from the fact that customers
whose complaints are satisfactorily resolved, become even more
loyal than they were before the complaint arose